Stray Cat
by Matt Jobs
Summary: What happens when Minerva catches Albus staring?


Stray Cat…

It was a normal winter morning, the sky in the great hall was a dark-gray tinge with tiny specks of white scattering across its vast surface. The students were all eating their normal breakfasts of cold and hot cereals with pumpkin juice to drink. The owl post had just left and everyone was reading their Daily Prophets or letters from home. It seemed that Seamus Finnegan had received a large package containing some new robes, woolen socks, and candy, one package of which were sherbet lemons. As Minerva saw this she giggled to herself because once again all she could think about was Albus, Oh how he would have loved all that for his birthday.

'Merlin's Beard was she beautiful,' Albus thought silently. His eyes were sweeping over Minerva's body, from the highest hair on her head down to her hands which were resting softly on her legs as she stared out into the crowd of students. Her body bounced slightly as Albus realized she must have been laughing. Oh to hear her laugh he thought. She began to move a little turning to her side. Her eyes locked on his! He quickly turned to start a conversation with Severus to his right.

Once the students started leaving for their first class of the week Albus rushed with them to quickly go up to his study before he would have to have that awkward conversation with Minerva as to why he was staring at her. As he sat there his mind began to wander. It wandered to his dreams of summer afternoons where they would lay out near the lake, sitting there just to be with each other. Nights when he could fall asleep to that heavenly smell that wafted wherever she walked. Mornings, where the first thing he would see when he woke was the soft morning light spreading across her beautiful eyes as she slowly awoke. As he day dreamed this he began to grow sad as he knew that this would never happen. He had dreamt this many times before and he always came to that same conclusion. He stood up, deciding that he should go down and see how Minerva's classes were going and so that he could have 'The Conversation' with her once class was over. As he got to the bottom of the great staircase and turned right to head to her classroom he noticed a large grouping of students in the hallway. As they saw him Miss Granger rushed up and in a panicked voice said, "Professor, McGonagall isn't here. We have been waiting here for almost an hour and she still isn't here. We tried to talk to the other teachers but there are Imperturbable Charms on all of the doors!" She became quiet and took a deep breath waiting for Dumbledore's reply. He just went to Professor Flitwick's door waved his wand. He went inside and pulled Flitwick to the corner, the students couldn't fully hear the hushed word that were being exchanged but they did hear the words McGonagall, Death Eater, and missing. Draco swore he heard the word 'Dead' and started to joke around with his friends/followers. Hermione glared at them and started to walk towards him with her wand out when Flitwick and Dumbledore finally emerged from the classroom and said, "Professor McGonagall is missing, we do not suspect anything serious but all the same we would like you to gather in the Great Hall." The tone of his voice relayed the fact that they did suspect it was serious, but there was also a sad fear in his usually impassive voice. "Get Snape out here to help search also. We NEED to find her!" He said in a more intense voice. He then rushed off in the direction of the stairs once more and disappeared around the corner.

As he reached the top of the stairwell he decided he'd check near the Hufflepuff common room first. He rushed through the common room and found nothing. 'Gryffindor next,' he thought. Again he rushed through the general area, he was just about to leave when he heard a pained meow coming from the stairs just above him. He runs up there to find the youngest of the Creevy family, Colin and Denis's little sister, Michelle struggling to keep hold of a cat. Dumbledore smiled and asked, "Have you had Professor McGonagall's transfiguration class yet?"

"What," she jumped as she looked up to see Dumbledore standing right in front of her. In this action she accidentally dropped the cat. "No, I haven't. My parents didn't want me to take that until my second year. Thought I might hurt myself. Instead I'm taking double classes with Hagrid. Now I need to get that cat and take it down to him. It was weird, it seemed to have sprouted a human nose of couple times so I was trying to hold on really firmly so that I could bring it down to be studied."

Dumbledore, with the smile still on his face, said, "Don't worry about the cat, I'll take care of it. Just run down to Professor Flitwick and tell him 'Everything is fine now'. Can you do that?" Without an answer Michelle rushed down the stairs to carry the news. The cat walked up to Albus and slowly rubbed up against his leg and purred, he looked down quizzically wondering why McGonagall was doing this when she morphed back into her human form. There were a few moments of silence when Albus finally said, "Look. About earlier at breakfast…" Minerva put a finger to his lips and shook her head. She then removed her finger and kissed him. It seemed like it lasted forever and he wished it would of, but alas she stopped.

"You never even wondered why I was looking at you. Did you?" Minerva says with a sly smile spreading across her lips.

"No, I didn't," Albus replies and then brings his face to hers and kisses her.


End file.
